Joey Lagano, front left, and Greg Biffle, front right, lead the pack out of the trioval during Sunday's Camping World RV Sales 500 at Talladega Superspeedway. / John David Mercer, USA TODAY Spor

by Nate Ryan, USA TODAY Sports

by Nate Ryan, USA TODAY Sports

TALLADEGA, Ala. - There was no large pileup that left smoking, twisted hunks of sheet metal scattered around the garage. There was no frenzied scramble for position in the closing laps. There wasn't even a breathtaking green-flag finish featuring a last-corner pass for the lead.

An unlikely set of circumstances at typically calamitous Talladega Superspeedway produced an unlikely winner Sunday: Jamie McMurray, who ended a 108-race winless streak of more than three years in the Sprint Cup Series and also became the second consecutive driver outside the 2013 Chase for the Sprint Cup to take a checkered flag during the 10-race title run (joining Charlotte Motor Speedway winner Brad Keselowski).

And perhaps no one was more stunned than McMurray, who moved into first off a green-flag pit cycle and then nervously watched the rear-view mirror of his No. 1 Chevrolet for the final 15 laps while awaiting the inevitable freight train that would swallow up his lead.

It never materialized.

"Yeah, completely surprised," McMurray said after the seventh victory of his career. "In these races, it becomes much more intense, and everyone starts taking bigger risks.

"I was really surprised that they weren't able to put something together and make more of a run. Yeah, I was shocked by that."

The Earnhardt Ganassi Racing driver wasn't alone. Many NASCAR stars expressed bewilderment about the muted finish of a 500-mile race that still offered plenty of wild racing. There were 52 lead changes among 20 drivers, but there also were five stretches in which a driver led at least 10 consecutive laps.

McMurray led the last of those stints, and it was the most baffling. At a 2.66-mile track that often produces three lanes of traffic as drivers seek to advance by pushing each others' cars through the finicky draft, virtually the entire field opted to run single file following McMurray around the top of the 33-degree banking for 10 laps until the white flag.

"Shocking," said Jeff Gordon, who finished 14th. "I've never seen guys have that much patience here in my life."

There might have been myriad factors contributing to the discretion displayed in the closing stages.

There was the looming specter of Saturday's Camping World Truck Series race, which produced four massive pileups in the final 25 laps and sent Justin Lofton to the hospital with a fractured thumb after a fiery 12-truck crash on the final lap.

There was inexperience in the front pack. Rookies Ricky Stenhouse Jr. and Austin Dillon waited until the last lap to make their moves, which resulted in Dillon briefly going airborne after contact with Stenhouse and causing the final caution that froze the field with a half-lap remaining and handed the win to McMurray.

The inside lanes also didn't work well for much of the race.

"If you make the commitment to go to the bottom and you can't get 10 good cars with you, you lose 10 to or 12 spots," McMurray said. "The risk isn't worth the reward."

Drivers probably deserved credit for minimizing the risks for much of Sunday's race, which produced the fewest yellow flags (three) and caution laps (10) since a caution-free race 11 years ago.

"It wasn't for a lack of effort," said Jimmie Johnson (13th), who took a four-point lead over Matt Kenseth in the standings despite his first finish outside the top 10 during the Chase. "We were racing really, really hard two-, three-, four-wide. We just left each other enough room."

Said Joey Logano: "There were a few times it looked like there was going to be a big crash, and there never was. In the end, though, nobody wanted to go."

Logano at least had help from Penske Racing teammate Keselowski, but it didn't make a difference.

"You would just go right to the back," Keselowski said. "I tried really hard to work with Joey there at the end, and all we did was go backward. You are better off to just stay single file."

NASCAR's most popular driver still thought that it would work out for him, but Earnhardt's restrictor-plate winless streak was extended to nine years and 36 races.

"I had no reason to make a move before the last lap," Earnhardt said. "Nobody moved, so I was like, 'Hey, I'm just going to wait. I don't have to try until the very end. I've got one guy to pass and maybe it'll work.' "

He never got the chance to try. It was that kind of odd day at Talladega.